Mindfulness
DOI 10.1007/s12671-017-0792-0
ORIGINAL PAPER
Practicing Self-Compassion Weakens the Relationship
Between Fear of Receiving Compassion and the Desire to Conceal
Negative Experiences from Others
Jessica R. Dupasquier 1 & Allison C. Kelly 1 & David A. Moscovitch 1 & Vanja Vidovic 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017
Abstract Disclosure of personal distress is linked to impor-
tant interpersonal and intrapersonal benefits. However, people
who tend to view self-disclosure as being risky are likely to
conceal their feelings and forgo opportunities to receive valu-
able social support. One such group of people may be those
who fear receiving compassion. The current study of 85 fe-
male undergraduates investigated (a) whether fear of receiving
compassion would predict decreased distress disclosure and
(b) whether inducing a self-compassionate mindset could help
to temper the association between fear of receiving compas-
sion and perceived risks of revealing one’s distress to others.
Participants completed self-report questionnaires to measure
trait-like fears of receiving compassion as well as general dis-
tress disclosure tendencies. They were then enrolled in a lab-
oratory experiment in which they recalled a personal past neg-
ative experience and were randomly assigned to write about it
in a self-compassionate, self-esteem enhancing, or non-
directive way. Finally, they rated how risky disclosing their
experience would feel and disclosed the event in a written
letter to another person. At a trait level, results indicated that
the more participants feared receiving compassion, the less
they tended to disclose. Moreover, self-compassion train-
ing—but neither of the comparison conditions—significantly
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
(doi:10.1007/s12671-017-0792-0) contains supplementary material,
which is available to authorized users.
* Jessica R. Dupasquier
jrdupasq@uwaterloo.ca
1
Department of Psychology and Centre for Mental Health Research,
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada
weakened the positive link between fear of receiving compas-
sion and perceived risks of distress disclosure. These novel
findings suggest that practicing self-compassion could help to
neutralize the maladaptive relationship between fear of receiv-
ing compassion and perceived risk of disclosure.
Keywords Self-compassion . Self-disclosure . Distress
disclosure . Fear of compassion
Introduction
Self-disclosure—the process of revealing one’s private
thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes to others—is a com-
mon way to develop and strengthen relationships. It increases
trust, intimacy, and liking between individuals when used ap-
propriately (Collins and Miller 1994; Larzelere and Huston
1980; Laurenceau et al. 1998). Although self-disclosure often
results in positive interpersonal outcomes, it can also have
important psychological benefits, particularly when it comes
to the disclosure of negative feelings. Engaging in distress
disclosure—the disclosure of information regarding one’s
own negative experiences and emotions—to close others or
to mental health professionals is related to heightened life
satisfaction and subjective well-being through decreases in
perceived stress and depressive symptoms (Kahn et al. 2001;
Saxena and Mehrotra 2010; Ward et al. 2007). Distress dis-
closure also predicts perceived social support, which plays an
important role in protecting the individual from psychosocial
stress (Heinrichs et al. 2003; Hyde et al. 2011; Kahn and
Hessling 2001). Despite the apparent benefits of distress dis-
closure, some individuals tend to avoid disclosing their emo-
tional distress to others, prohibiting them from seeking out
social support when needed (Besser et al. 2003; Richardson
and Rice 2015). Encouraging distress disclosure, especially

among those who disclose little, may be important to help
them improve and/or maintain their psychological well-being.
To identify the factors that promote and deter distress dis-
closure, one must understand the factors that impact decisions
to disclose emotional information. The perceived risk of dis-
closure has been proposed as a key contributor to the disclo-
sure of intimate information (Omarzu 2000; Vogel and Wester
2003). Because distress disclosure is inherently a more inti-
mate form of disclosure that involves revealing one’s feelings
and personal insecurities to others, it is commonly perceived
as a risky venture. For example, many distressing events such
as personal failures or rejection experiences lead to feelings of
shame which elicit fears that others will respond to the disclo-
sure of such events with criticism and judgment (Macdonald
and Morley 2001). Some individuals, however, may expect
negative consequences from disclosure even when they ex-
pect others to be warm and compassionate rather than critical
and judgmental. In particular, people who fear receiving com-
passion—those who feel threatened by expressions of care
from others—are likely to experience anxiety or embarrass-
ment when others show warmth or kindness (Gilbert et al.
2011). Gilbert et al. (2011) proposed that those who fear com-
passion may experience feelings of grief when others express
caring toward them, as it acts as a reminder of previous in-
stances when affection or compassion may have been with-
held. Such reminders bring aversive feelings such as loneli-
ness and yearning for close relationships to the foreground.
Individuals high in fears of receiving compassion may also
believe that others could use compassion as a means of ma-
nipulating them for their own personal gain (Gilbert et al.
2011). Gilbert et al. (2011) developed a measure to assess
individual differences in the fear of receiving compassion
and found that a greater fear of receiving compassion from
others was associated with various forms of psychopathology
as well as other psychosocial vulnerability factors such as self-
criticism, anxious attachment, stress, and depression (Gilbert
et al. 2012; Joeng and Turner 2015).
Thus, individuals who fear receiving compassion may per-
ceive that sharing intimate information comes with heightened
risks, potentially leading them to disclose less about their per-
sonal distress, or not at all. Although this proposed relation-
ship between fear of receiving compassion and decreased dis-
tress disclosure has yet to be borne out empirically, avoidance
of disclosure would be particularly concerning for those with
such fears, given the heightened stress and negative affectivity
to which they are vulnerable (Gilbert et al. 2011; Kelly and
Dupasquier 2016). Thus, paradoxically, individuals high in
fears of receiving compassion may be among those who
would benefit most from seeking support from others through
disclosure while also being among those least likely to do so.
How can those who fear receiving compassion be encour-
aged to trust in and accept expressions of concern and caring
from others? For these individuals, practicing self-compassion
Mindfulness
may be a more palatable introduction to the experience of
receiving support and kindness. Self-compassion is a
Buddhist construct defined in the psychological literature as
taking a caring stance toward the self in which one aims to
understand and alleviate one’s own suffering without judg-
ment (Gilbert 2009; Neff 2003). Neff proposed that self-
compassion is comprised of three subcomponents. First, self-
kindness is the most face-valid component, as it involves rec-
ognizing one’s own worth and extending kindness, love, and
understanding toward oneself even in the face of personal
flaws. Second, mindfulness requires an acknowledgment and
understanding of one’s distressing emotions without becom-
ing caught up in them to a degree that coping becomes impos-
sible. Third, feelings of common humanity refer to the recog-
nition that suffering is an inevitable part of being human.
Whereas some individuals can feel alone or isolated in their
suffering, being self-compassionate allows one to maintain
feelings of connectedness to others and see one’s difficulties
from a broader perspective during times of distress.
Although self-compassion was originally conceptualized
as being a cross-situational trait, and the majority of research
to date has examined it as a stable characteristic, levels of
self-compassion can vary considerably depending on contex-
tual factors. For example, in a daily diary study, Kelly and
Stephen (2016) found that 37% of the variance in partici-
pants’ levels of self-compassion occurred within-persons,
indicating that participants’ self-compassion tends to fluctu-
ate on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, brief experimental
manipulations and interventions have been found to effec-
tively increase state levels of self-compassion (Breines and
Chen 2012, 2013). Thus, self-compassion demonstrates sta-
bility over time, but there is also significant variability in an
individual’s level of self-compassion from one period of
time to the next.
Self-compassion interventions have been found to reduce
distress and negative affect across individuals suffering from a
variety of psychological difficulties (Barnard and Curry
2011). We propose that self-compassion may be particularly
beneficial for individuals who fear receiving compassion both
by helping them better regulate their emotions and lowering
the perceived risk of disclosing their emotional experience to
others (Gilbert 2005). According to Gilbert et al. (2011), indi-
viduals who fear receiving compassion are likely to have a
history of early attachment experiences during which
affiliative feelings (e.g., warmth), care-seeking, and an open-
ness to compassion were accompanied by negative outcomes
such as experiences of criticism, abuse, or neglect (Gilbert
et al. 2011; Miron et al. 2016). As such, these individuals learn
that they are not deserving of compassion and that compassion
is not to be trusted, which evidence suggests may result in a
failure to develop self-compassion, leaving them less capable
of regulating their own negative feelings (Kelly and
Dupasquier 2016; Neff and McGeehee 2010).
Mindfulness
Gilbert (2005, 2014) proposed that self-compassion stimu-
lates feelings of security and being cared for just as social
connection and affiliation do, a theory which has received
preliminary empirical support (Kelly and Dupasquier 2016).
Individuals with heightened fears of receiving compassion
from others often have similar fears of and difficulties being
self-compassionate. However, practicing self-compassion
may be a less threatening starting point for recognizing com-
passion’s emotional benefits, because unlike receiving com-
passion from others, it does not involve making oneself vul-
nerable to interpersonal risks like rejection. Self-compassion
can also be more easily implemented through interventions
than directly receiving compassion, because the latter relies
on the responses of others (see supplementary materials for
further discussion). By facilitating an openness to compas-
sion, self-compassion may reduce the impact these fears have
on the perceived risk of seeking comfort from others.
The aim of the present study was two-fold. First, we sought
to test the proposition that fear of receiving compassion is
associated with the tendency to conceal rather than disclose
distress by examining the correlation between trait measures
of fear of receiving compassion and distress disclosure.
Second, within the context of a laboratory-based experimental
paradigm in which participants wrote about a past distressing
personal experience, we investigated the impact that inducing
a self-compassionate mindset would have on the relationships
between fear of receiving compassion, on the one hand, and
perceived risk of disclosure, negative feelings, and the length
and emotional depth of the actual disclosure itself, on the
other. With respect to this second aim, we tested the effects
of self-compassion against two control conditions: a self-
esteem enhancing condition and a free writing condition.
Although self-esteem and self-compassion are both positive
self-attitudes correlated with one another, there are important
distinctions between the two constructs (see Barnard and
Curry 2011 for a review). Self-esteem is conceptualized as
one’s overall self-evaluation, and is characterized by self-
liking and perceived competence (Rosenberg 1965; Tafarodi
and Milne 2006). Gilbert (2014) suggested that self-esteem
and self-compassion are linked to separate affective systems,
a notion supported by recent neuropsychological evidence
(Simon-Thomas et al. 2012). Thus, to ensure that any ob-
served effects were unique to self-compassion rather than a
general increase in positive global feelings toward the self, we
included a control condition aimed at enhancing self-esteem.
We also included a third condition in which participants were
asked to complete a non-directive Bfree writing^ exercise to
control for any beneficial effects of simply writing or thinking
more about the experience (Pennebaker 1997).
First, we hypothesized that (H1) participants who endorse
greater trait-like fears of receiving compassion would report a
decreased tendency to disclose distress to others. Second,
practicing self-compassion should weaken the expected
positive relationship between fear of receiving compassion
and negative affect as well as its expected negative relation-
ship with distress disclosure by facilitating an openness to
compassion. Thus, we predicted that in the self-esteem and
control conditions, fear of receiving compassion would be
associated with (H2a) greater negative affect, (H2b) greater
perceived risk of disclosing the negative experience, and
(H2c) less actual disclosure, but would be unrelated to these
variables in the self-compassion condition.
Method
Participants
Participants were female undergraduate students from the psy-
chology subject pool of a large Canadian university. They
received bonus credits toward a psychology course and five
dollars as remuneration. As previous research has found that
both the gender of the discloser and disclosure target can have
an impact on self-disclosure, only female participants were
recruited (Dindia 2002).
Out of 111 participants who signed up for the study, 90
participants completed both the online questionnaire as well
as the in-lab portion of the study. Of these, five participants
were excluded from analyses, four due to suspicion of decep-
tion (see BProcedure^ section below for explanation of funnel
debriefing procedure), and one due to an inability to select a
negative experience appropriate for the study. The final sam-
ple consisted of 85 participants, ages 17–30 years old
(M = 20.14, SD = 2.28; four participants did not report their
age). Thirty-five (41.2%) participants identified themselves as
Caucasian, 16 (18.8%) as East Asian, 14 (16.5%) as South
Asian, five (5.9%) as Southeast Asian, two (2.4%) as West
Indian/Caribbean, two (2.4%) as Middle Eastern, two (2.4%)
as Black/African, one (1.2%) as Hispanic, and four partici-
pants (4.7%) did not identify an ethnic background. Twenty-
nine participants were in their first year of undergraduate stud-
ies (34.1%), 13 were in their second year (15.3%), 20 were in
their third year (23.5%), 15 were in their fourth year (17.6%),
and seven were in their fifth year or above (8.2%). One par-
ticipant did not indicate their level of education. Information
on participants’ socio-economic status was not collected.
Procedure
Prior to being invited into the lab for the experimental session,
participants were e-mailed a link to complete the trait fear of
receiving compassion and distress disclosure measures. The
average amount of time elapsed between completion of this
measure and the in-lab session was 5.09 days (SD = 3.46).
After providing their informed consent to participate upon
arrival for the experiment, participants were first asked to

report their state negative affect (NA). Next, they were
prompted to select a negative experience that involved feel-
ings of failure, humiliation, or rejection but was not a trauma
as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (American Psychiatric Association 2013; see
supplementary materials for additional criteria). Participants
were then asked a series of open-ended questions regarding
their experience to ensure that they had brought it to mind in
sufficient depth (e.g., BWhat happened?^, BWhen did the ex-
perience happen?^, BWhat led up to this experience?^).
Participants were then once again asked to report their state
NA, which served as our pre-writing measure.
Subsequently, an algorithm in Qualtrics ™ randomly
assigned participants to complete one of three writing exer-
cises that served as the experimental manipulation: (a) a self-
compassion exercise, (b) a self-esteem enhancing exercise, or
(c) a free writing exercise, each modeled after the writing
exercises developed by Leary et al. (2007, study 5) and used
in previous studies manipulating self-compassion (Breines
and Chen 2012; Johnson and O’Brien 2013; Odou and
Brinker 2015). In each condition, participants were asked to
respond to three writing prompts. They could write for as long
as they chose, but were told the exercise should take approx-
imately 10 min. All participants were informed that the aim of
the writing exercise was to alleviate negative feelings regard-
ing their negative experience.
Experimental Manipulations In the self-compassion condi-
tion, the prompts were designed to target feelings related to the
three components of self-compassion as defined by Neff
(2003): (a) self-kindness (i.e., B…write a paragraph express-
ing kindness, understanding, and concern toward yourself^),
(b) mindfulness (i.e., B…write about the event in a detached,
objective fashion^), and (c) common humanity (i.e., B…write
down ways in which other people also experience events that
are similar to the one you described^). In the self-esteem con-
dition, the prompts were designed to either boost or preserve
the participant’s self-esteem by (a) focusing on personal
strengths, (b) making defensive attributions (Maltese et al.
2012), and (c) remembering past successes. The free writing
condition prompts were designed to account for the impact
that simply writing and thinking about the experience could
have on participants’ feelings (Pennebaker 1997). In this con-
dition, participants were instructed to B…really let go^ and
explore their deepest (a) thoughts, (b) feelings, and (c) beliefs
about the experience. See supplementary materials for com-
plete writing prompts. After completing the writing exercise,
participants were once again asked to complete the NA items,
which served as their post-writing exercise score.
Deception The researcher then informed the participants that,
as another means of improving their feelings regarding their
negative experience, they would have the chance to engage in
Mindfulness
a supportive discussion with another female participant.
Participants were told that each of them would be asked to
write a letter to one another describing their negative experi-
ences, exchange their letters, and afterwards, they would come
together to discuss. They were told this procedure was neces-
sary to ensure that there was no mutual influence on their level
of disclosure. Researchers emphasized that participants could
share as much or as little as they wished, or nothing at all if
desired. They were also informed that prior to exchanging
letters, the researcher would verify that the other female par-
ticipant was unknown to them, and they would have a chance
to withdraw their letter if they knew their conversation partner
and were uncomfortable proceeding.
Prior to writing their letter, participants were asked to com-
plete a measure of the perceived risk of disclosing to the other
participant. Then, participants completed their letter to the
supposed other participant, after which the study was termi-
nated. None of the letters were actually read by other partici-
pants, and no supportive conversation took place. Researchers
conducted a funnel debriefing procedure to probe for suspi-
cion regarding deception and the purpose of the study.
Participants who fully doubted the deception were excluded
from analyses (see BParticipant^ section above). Finally, par-
ticipants were debriefed and given the opportunity to raise any
questions or concerns. At this stage, we obtained informed
consent to use participants’ data with their complete aware-
ness of the study’s true purposes.
Measures
All questionnaires were administered via Qualtrics™, a US-
based online survey tool.
Previous Disclosure Regarding the Negative Experience
To examine whether participants were selecting negative ex-
periences that they had not previously disclosed in depth, they
were asked to respond to a single item, BHow much have you
shared about your thoughts and feelings regarding this nega-
tive experience with others?^ on a Likert-type scale from 1 (BI
have very slightly shared my thoughts and feelings about this
experience, or have not shared them at all^) to 5 (BI have
shared my thoughts and feelings about this experience in full
and complete detail^).
Perceived Severity of the Negative Experience To verify
that participants across conditions were selecting negative ex-
periences of similar subjective severity, they were asked to
respond to the question BRight at this moment, how badly
does this experience make you feel about yourself?^ on a
visual analogue scale ranging from 0 (Bnot at all^) to 100
(Bvery badly^).
Mindfulness
Effort To ensure that participants were sufficiently engaged in
the experimental manipulation, participants were asked to re-
spond to a single item, BHow much effort did you honestly
apply to the written exercise?^ on a five-point Likert-type
scale from 1 (BNo effort/did not do it^) to 5 (BAll of the effort
that I was able to^).
Fear of Receiving Compassion The 13-item section from the
Fears of Compassion Scales developed by Gilbert et al. (2011)
was used to assess fears of compassion from others (e.g., BI try
to keep my distance from others even if I know they are kind,^
BFeelings of kindness from others are somehow frightening^).
Using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (Bstrongly
disagree^) to 4 (Bstrongly agree^), participants are asked to
indicate the extent to which they agree with a set of
compassion-related statements. Participants’ totals have a
minimum possible score of 0 and a maximum possible score
of 52. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.90 in the current study, indicat-
ing excellent internal consistency.
Distress Disclosure The Distress Disclosure Index (DDI) was
developed by Kahn and Hessling (2001) to measure the ten-
dency to conceal versus disclose psychological distress. On a
scale from 1 (Bstrongly disagree^) to 5 (Bstrongly agree^),
participants rated their agreement with 12 items regarding
their typical level of disclosure to close others (e.g., BWhen I
feel upset, I usually confide in my friends,^ BI usually seek out
someone to talk to when I am in a bad mood^). Total scores
are calculated by taking the average of the 12-item scores,
where greater scores indicate a greater tendency to dislose
distress to others. A review of previous research demonstrated
the DDI to be a highly reliable instrument with alpha coeffi-
cients ranging from 0.89 to 0.95 (Kahn et al. 2012). The mea-
sure’s internal consistency was equally excellent in the present
study (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.96).
Negative Affect State NA was measured using two visual
analogue scale items: (a) Bupset^ and (b) Bdistressed.^ On a
scale represented by a slider ranging from 0 (Bvery slightly or
not at all^) to 100 (Bextremely^), participants were asked to
indicate the degree to which they felt each emotion at the
present moment. Responses to both items were averaged to
create a composite measure of NA. Affect was measured at
three time points: (T1) prior to the negative experience recall,
(T2) after recalling their negative experience but before com-
pleting the writing exercise, and (T3) post-writing exercise.
Spearman-Brown coefficients for the NA items in the present
study were 0.76 pre-writing and 0.85 post-writing exercise.
Perceived Risk To measure the perceived risk of making a
disclosure to the other participant in the study, the risk-related
items from Vogel and Wester (2003) were administered.
Participants were asked to respond to the four Likert-style
items (e.g., BHow risky does it feel to disclose your negative
experience to the other participant?^, BHow difficult will it be
for you to disclose personal information to the other
participant?^) on a scale from 1 (Bnot at all^) to 7 (Bvery^).
The average of these four items was used as a composite
measure of perceived risk of disclosure. Cronbach’s alpha
for the four items was 0.82 in the present study, indicating
good internal consistency.
Letter Content (LIWC2015) As an objective measure of
disclosure length and emotional depth, the text analysis soft-
ware program Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count 2015
(LIWC2015) was used to analyze the content of the letters
participants wrote to the alleged other participant.
LIWC2015 counts word appearances and can classify them
into a range of different categories using dictionaries of ap-
proximately 6400 words and word stems (Pennebaker et al.
2015). In addition to total word count, the linguistic category
of negative emotion was used to count emotion-related word
appearances, calculated as a proportion of the total word
count. Proportion of negative words has been used as a mea-
sure of disclosure depth in previous research (Callaghan et al.
2013; Houghton and Joinson 2012).
Data Analyses
Analyses were conducted in IBM SPSS Statistics 20 (2011).
Hierarchical multiple regression was used to investigate
whether experimental condition moderated the associations
between fear of receiving compassion and our outcome vari-
ables of interest. At the first step, fear of receiving compassion
was entered (grand mean centered), followed by two dummy-
coded variables at the second step representing the main effect
of condition. Finally, two interaction terms were entered at the
third step to represent the condition by fear of receiving com-
passion interaction. The main dependent variables were post-
writing (T3) NA, perceived risk of disclosure, and actual dis-
closure as measured by letter word count and the proportion of
negative emotion words used in participants’ letters (as mea-
sured by LIWC2015). Significant interactions were
interpreted by examining simple slopes (the conditional effect
of fear of receiving compassion in step 3 for the condition
represented with a zero in each of the dummy-coded contrasts
in the model).
Results
Relationship Between Fear of Receiving Compassion
and Distress Disclosure
The zero-order correlation between fear of receiving compas-
sion and the Distress Disclosure Index indicated the presence
 Mindfulness

of a significant negative relationship (r(83) = −0.49,
p < 0.001). This provided support for our hypothesis that fear
of receiving compassion would be associated with decreased
disclosure of negative feelings and distressing experiences to
others.
Equivalence of Groups
Of the 85 participants included in the analyses, 29 were ran-
domly assigned to the self-compassion condition, 30 were
assigned to the self-esteem condition, and 26 were assigned
to the free writing condition. There were no significant differ-
ences between conditions on any demographic variables or
baseline measures (see Table 1 for means and standard
deviations and see supplementary materials for analyses).
Zero-Order Correlations
Zero-order correlations were calculated to examine relation-
ships between proposed predictor and outcome variables. As
shown in Table 2, results demonstrated that individuals with
heightened fears of receiving compassion felt worse about
themselves due to their past negative experience and had
higher pre-writing exercise (T2) NA. Perceived risk of disclo-
sure was positively related to how badly participants felt about
themselves regarding the event and to their NA. Letter word
count was negatively related to perceived risk of disclosure,
suggesting that those who felt that disclosure would be more
risky disclosed less in their letter to the other participant.
Participants whose letters contained a higher proportion of
NA words composed shorter letters overall and perceived the
disclosure of their negative experience to be riskier. Finally,
participants’ general distress disclosure tendencies did not pre-
dict NA, perceived risk of disclosure, or actual disclosure.
Manipulation Checks of Engagement and Effort
To examine whether participants were emotionally engaged
during the recall of their distressing experience, a repeated
measure ANOVA was conducted to examine changes in NA
from before (T1) to after (T2) bringing their negative experi-
ence to mind. Analyses revealed a main effect of time, which
indicated that NA increased from pre- to post-recall (F(1,
82) = 103.82, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.56). No significant time by
condition interaction was found (F(2, 82) = 0.48, p = 0.62,
ηp2 = 0.01). These results suggest that participants were emo-
tionally engaged in the recall activity across conditions.
A one-way ANOVA indicated that there was no difference
in self-reported effort applied across conditions (F(1,
82) = 0.82, p = 0.44, ηp2 = 0.02). The overall mean rating of
effort applied during the writing exercise was 3.65 out of 5
(SD = 0.84), suggesting that participants applied themselves
reasonably well to their assigned writing exercise.
Condition as a Moderator of Associations Between Fear
of Receiving Compassion and Outcomes
In the analysis of negative affect, T2 scores were entered as a
covariate in the hierarchical linear regression to control for
pre-writing levels of NA. No significant main effect of condi-
tion was present (see Table 3, ΔR2 for step 2). Consistent with
our hypotheses, there was a significant interaction between
condition and fear of receiving compassion. This interaction
term accounted for 6.4% of the variance in post-writing (T3)
NA (see ΔR2 for step 3). The slope for fear of receiving

Table 1 Means and standard deviations of all variables

Pre-writing exercise (T2) Post-writing exercise (T3)

Self- Self-esteem Free writing Self-compassion Self-esteem Free writing

compassion condition condition condition condition condition
condition

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Fear of receiving compassion 17.00 11.97 14.83 7.96 13.66 8.88 – – – – – –

Trait distress disclosure 2.92 1.17 3.12 0.91 3.50 0.97 – – – – – –
Previous disclosure 2.38 1.12 2.13 1.14 2.08 0.98 – – – – – –
Event-related negative self-feelings 61.52 24.01 61.50 17.87 55.92 22.04 – – – – – –
Negative affect 45.79 25.89 38.58 21.01 37.65 19.20 24.83 23.73 24.85 19.25 30.19 22.94
Perceived risk of disclosure – – – – – – 4.01 1.16 3.87 1.02 3.73 1.13
Letter word count – – – – – – 163.52 84.65 167.17 72.70 176.88 86.22
Proportion of negative affect words in letter – – – – – – 0.027 0.019 0.032 0.019 0.036 0.016

Only NA was assessed both pre- (T2) and post-writing exercise (T3)
Mindfulness

Table 2 Zero-order correlations

between predictor and outcome 1 2 3 4 5 6
variables
1. Fear of receiving compassion –
2. Trait distress disclosure −0.49** –
3. Event-related negative self-feelings 0.22* −0.02
4. Negative affect (T2) 0.29** 0.05 0.55**
5. Perceived risk of disclosure 0.11 0.05 0.22* 0.23*
6. Letter word count 0.20† −0.05 0.09 0.02 −0.25*
7. Proportion of negative affect words in letter 0.03 0.08 0.15 0.05 0.23* −0.24*
†
p < 0.10, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01

compassion predicting NA in the self-compassion condition
was significantly different from the slopes for participants in
the self-esteem and free writing conditions (as indicated by the
tests of the two interaction terms entered in step 3). An iden-
tical analysis using a third dummy code to replace D1 (D3
self-compassion = 1, self-esteem = 0, free writing = 0) re-
vealed that the slopes of the self-esteem and free writing con-
ditions did not differ significantly from one another (B = 0.23,
SE = 0.53, β = 0.05, p = 0.66). An examination of the simple
slopes using pre-writing (T2) NA scores as a covariate re-
vealed that there was a significant positive relationship be-
tween NA post-writing exercise (T3) and fears of receiving
compassion in the free writing condition (B = 0.84, SE = 0.37,
p = 0.03, 95% CI [0.10, 1.58], sr2 = 0.034), a non-significant
positive relationship in the self-esteem condition (B = 0.61,
SE = 0.39, p = 0.12, 95% CI [−0.16, 1.38], sr2 = 0.016), and a
non-significant negative relationship in the self-compassion
condition (B = −0.40, SE = 0.26, p = 0.13, 95% CI [−0.92,
0.12], sr2 = 0.016; see Fig. 1).
Results from the analysis of perceived risk ratings indicated
that although there was no significant main effect of condition
(see Table 3, ΔR2 for step 2), there was a significant interaction
between condition and fear of receiving compassion, consis-
tent with our hypotheses. This interaction accounted for 7.4%
of the variance in risk of disclosure (ΔR2 for step 3). The slope
for fear of receiving compassion predicting perceived risk in
the self-compassion condition was significantly different from
the slopes for participants in the self-esteem and free writing

Table 3 Hierarchical linear regressions in which fear of receiving compassion interacts with condition to predict post-writing (T3) negative affect and
perceived risk of disclosure

Negative affect Perceived risk of disclosure

B SE β ΔR2 ΔF B SE β ΔR2 ΔF

Step 1 0.002 0.22 0.013 1.06

Pre-writing (T2) negative affect 0.59 0.09 0.60** – – – – –
Fear of receiving compassion 0.10 0.20 0.04 0.01 0.01 0.11
Step 2 0.039 2.69† 0.008 0.33
Pre-writing (T2) negative affect 0.61 0.09 0.63** – – – – –
Fear of receiving compassion 0.14 0.20 0.06 0.01 0.01 0.10
D1 4.76 4.49 0.10 −0.12 0.29 −0.05
D2 10.84 4.68 0.23* −0.25 0.30 −0.10
Step 3 0.064 4.81* 0.074 3.24*
Pre-writing (T2) negative affect 0.60 0.08 0.62** – – – – –
Fear of receiving compassion −0.40 0.26 −0.18 −0.02 0.02 −0.17
D1 3.90 4.30 0.09 −0.16 0.28 −0.07
D2 10.88 4.49 0.23* −0.25 0.29 −0.11
D1 × fear of receiving compassion 1.01 0.46 0.22* 0.06 0.03 0.27*
D2 × fear of receiving compassion 1.24 0.45 0.28** 0.06 0.03 0.27*

Contrasts were dummy coded, where D1 self-compassion = 0, self-esteem = 1, free writing = 0 and D2 self-compassion = 0, self-esteem = 0, free
writing = 1. When analyzing NA as an outcome variable, pre-writing (T2) NA was included as a covariate prior to step 1
†
p < 0.10, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01
 Mindfulness

Fig. 1 Within-condition simple

slope estimates of fear of
receiving compassion predicting
negative affect post-writing
exercise (T3) controlling for pre-
writing (T2) negative affect. For
graphing purposes, pre-writing
NA was controlled for by
regressing post-writing NA on
pre-writing NA and plotting the
residuals of the regression (i.e.,
the difference between
participants’ post-writing NA and
what would be predicted based on
their pre-writing NA)

conditions (as indicated by the tests of both interaction terms
entered in step 3). An identical analysis using a third dummy
code to replace D1 (D3 self-compassion = 1, self-esteem = 0,
free writing = 0) verified that the slopes of the self-esteem and
free writing conditions did not differ significantly from one
another (B = −0.002, SE = 0.03, β = −0.01, p = 0.94). An
examination of the simple slopes supported our hypotheses
and revealed a non-significant positive relationship between
fears of receiving compassion and perceived risk of disclosure
in the self-esteem (B = 0.04, SE = 0.03, p = 0.08, 95% CI
[−0.01, 0.09], sr2 = 0.036) and free writing (B = 0.04,
SE = 0.02, p = 0.09, 95% CI [−0.01, 0.09], sr2 = 0.034) con-
ditions, and a weaker, non-significant negative relationship in
the self-compassion condition (B = −0.02, SE = 0.02, p = 0.27,
95% CI [−0.05, 0.02], sr2 = 0.014; see Fig. 2).
Separate hierarchical linear regressions were conducted on
each of the LIWC2015 disclosure outcome variables. No sig-
nificant main effect of condition or condition by fear of

Fig. 2 Within-condition simple

slope estimates of fear of
receiving compassion predicting
perceived risk of disclosure
Mindfulness
compassion interaction was found for letter word count (step 2
ΔR2 = 0.01, ΔF(2, 81) = 0.40, p = 0.67; step 3 ΔR2 = 0.01,
ΔF(2, 79) = 0.39, p = 0.68). However, there was a marginally
significant main effect of condition on proportion of negative
affect words (step 2 ΔR2 = 0.07, ΔF(2, 80) = 3.15, p = 0.05).
Effects of the dummy coded contrasts revealed that letters of
participants in the free writing condition contained a greater
proportion of NA words than those of participants in the self-
compassion condition (3.6 versus 2.7%, respectively;
B = 0.36, SE = 0.15, p = 0.02, 95% CI [.06, 0.65], sr2 = 0.068).
Letters of participants in the self-esteem condition did not
differ significantly in their proportion of negative words from
those in the self-compassion or free writing conditions
(B = 0.23, SE = 0.14, p = 0.11, 95% CI [−0.05, 0.52], sr2-
= 0.032; B = 0.12, SE = 0.14, p = 0.40, 95% CI [−0.16, 0.41],
sr2 = 0.009, respectively). Contrary to hypotheses, this effect
was not qualified by a fear of compassion by condition inter-
action (step 3 ΔR2 = 0.001, ΔF(2, 78) = 0.03, p = 0.97).
The analyses reported above were also conducted with per-
ceived severity of the selected event as a control variable/co-
variate. Perceived severity was only found to be a significant
predictor for perceived risk of disclosure, although the pattern
and interpretation of the results were unaffected (see
Supplementary Table 1).
Discussion
The current study had two overarching objectives. Our first
aim was to test the hypothesis that individuals with heightened
fears of receiving compassion would report a greater overall
reluctance to disclose distressing experiences to others. Our
second aim was to determine whether practicing self-
compassion would attenuate the relationship between fear of
receiving compassion and the perceived risk of—and tenden-
cy toward—disclosing that experience to someone else.
Results indicated that there was a moderate to large nega-
tive correlation between fear of receiving compassion and the
tendency to disclose experiences of distress to others at a trait
level, supporting hypothesis 1. Individuals who were more
concerned about or untrusting of receiving compassion from
others were also less likely to report seeking out others with
whom they can share their feelings when they are suffering or
upset.
Consistent with hypotheses 2a and 2b, fear of receiving
compassion interacted with condition to predict both NA
and perceived risk of disclosure. Despite this significant inter-
action, the conditional slopes for the most part did not reach
statistical significance, which may indicate that although the
effects of fear of receiving compassion differed between our
control conditions and the self-compassion condition, our
study was underpowered to detect the small effect sizes found
here. For example, the squared semi-partial correlations for
the simple slopes indicated that fears of receiving compassion
accounted for approximately 3.4 to 3.6% of the variance in
perceived risk of disclosure in the self-esteem and free writing
conditions, respectively. This translates to a small Cohen’s f2
of approximately 0.038. Future attempts to replicate the cur-
rent findings should recruit larger sample sizes to ensure ade-
quate power (e.g., N = 165 to achieve a power of 0.80 for a
Cohen’s f2 of 0.038). Given these issues, we proceed by cau-
tiously interpreting the direction of the conditional slopes.
Whereas fear of receiving compassion was positively relat-
ed to post-writing (T3) NA and perceived risk for participants
in the self-esteem and free writing conditions, fear of receiving
compassion was negatively or unrelated to post-writing NA
and perceived risk for participants in the self-compassion con-
dition. Together, these findings suggest that by writing about
their past negative experiences self-compassionately, the
strength of the relations between participants’ fears of receiv-
ing compassion and their levels of NA and perceived risk of
disclosure were weakened considerably or even reversed.
Although we did not assess for possible mechanisms underly-
ing this effect, a number of plausible explanations exist. In our
sample, fear of receiving compassion was positively correlat-
ed with pre-writing (T2) NA, which is consistent with previ-
ous findings that those who fear compassion tend to experi-
ence more distress than others (Cunha et al. 2015; Gilbert et al.
2012). Thus, these individuals would be expected to benefit
most from interventions aimed at regulating negative affect by
nurturing feelings of caring and warmth that they have previ-
ously avoided. Moreover, as self-compassion has been linked
to feeling more secure and connected to others within one’s
social world, practicing self-compassion might have led these
individuals to feel safer, less threatened, and thereby more
trusting of others, loosening the connection between their
fears and the perceived risks associated with self-disclosure
(Kelly and Dupasquier 2016).
Finally, although participants in the self-compassion con-
dition used a smaller proportion of NA-laden words in their
disclosure letters than those in the free writing condition, our
results did not support the hypothesis that condition would
moderate the relationship between fear of receiving compas-
sion and the characteristics of participants’ actual disclosures
(hypothesis 2c). One possible explanation for this finding is
that priming self-compassion truly does not facilitate distress
disclosure regardless of one’s level of discomfort with receiv-
ing care from others. It is also possible that other factors ob-
scured the real impact of cultivating self-compassion on actual
disclosure. For example, as participants in the self-compassion
condition experienced the least NA after their assigned writing
exercise, they might have felt less need to disclose regarding
negative emotions. Previous research has demonstrated that
willingness to disclose and the quality of disclosures depend
both on the perceived risk of disclosure and utility of making a
disclosure (Omarzu 2000; Vogel and Wester 2003). It is

possible that, by engaging in the writing intervention after
recalling their negative experience, the reduction in distress
that participants experienced also led to a relative reduction in
the perceived utility of making a disclosure (i.e., if one is less
distressed, further reduction of distress through disclosure
may be unnecessary). This may also explain why, contrary
to what theory would predict, fear of receiving compassion
was uncorrelated with actual disclosure at a zero-order level.
In the context of the study where participants were explicitly
told that disclosure could be useful for them, those who fear
receiving compassion could have simultaneously perceived
that the disclosure would be risky and helpful, resulting in
no observed zero-order relationship between fear of receiving
compassion and actual disclosure. Furthermore, the relatively
contrived environment offered by writing a letter rather than
speaking directly to another participant might have dampened
the relationship between perceived risk and disclosure.
Disclosure via letter writing is inherently characterized by a
lack of genuine reciprocity, which may be an important part of
the trust-building process that facilitates longer and deeper
self-disclosures—a process that may be most reliably mea-
sured in naturalistic rather than experimental contexts.
Nonetheless, fear of receiving compassion positively pre-
dicted NA as well as risk of disclosure within the self-esteem
and free writing conditions, suggesting that the more afraid
individuals are of receiving compassion, the less responsive
they may be to psychological interventions designed to re-
frame distressing personal experiences. However, interven-
tions that focus on enhancing self-compassion may be an ex-
ception. Teaching such individuals to become more self-
compassionate could uncouple their fears from the risks asso-
ciated with opening up to others and allow additional factors
to be taken into consideration when making a disclosure, such
as its potential benefits. On a conscious level, practicing self-
compassion might trigger the realization that compassion—be
it from themselves or from others—may actually be helpful,
which may encourage disclosure to others. Further research is
needed to determine whether this approach might encourage
more active help-seeking behavior, such as calling a friend for
support or making an appointment to see a therapist. If future
research demonstrates that self-compassion interventions can
in fact increase disclosure of distressing events, there could be
valuable clinical applications. As in-session disclosure has
been found to be a predictor of therapeutic success, encourag-
ing self-concealing clients to share their feelings and experi-
ences more openly through self-compassion-based interven-
tions may facilitate treatment response (Sloan and Kahn
2005).
Limitations and Future Directions
The present study has a number of limitations. First, our sam-
ple was restricted to female undergraduate participants only.
Mindfulness
Thus, we have little information on the generalizability of the
current findings to other populations. Future studies should
seek to replicate findings with community and male partici-
pants as well as mixed-gender dyads. It would also be impor-
tant to examine whether the current results would generalize
to a clinical sample, where the fear of receiving compassion
from others is likely to be especially high. It may be that
recalling negative experiences would have a far more toxic
effect in such a population and that a longer, therapist-led
intervention would be required to achieve the same effects
observed in the present study.
Second, the current study’s design placed fairly strict con-
straints on the types of events participants could select both in
order to ensure that they were choosing comparable experi-
ences and to minimize possible harm caused to them by
recalling more traumatic experiences. Although the instruc-
tions encouraged participants to select a negative experience
that was personally meaningful to them, it is possible that they
prevented participants from choosing experiences they desired
to conceal most from others or that involved more intense
distress. In fact, trauma is the type of experience that individ-
uals might benefit most from disclosing to loved ones, clini-
cians, or other professionals. Thus, future research should aim
to investigate whether the present results generalize to more
intense or threatening experiences such as trauma or abuse.
Third, the design of the current study placed participants in
a rather contrived disclosure situation, which could have
lowered ecological validity. The processes at play in this ex-
perimental context may not be generalizable to more natural-
istic settings. To build on our research, future studies might
look at whether being more self-compassionate on a given day
is associated with greater daily disclosure of distressing events
in the context of participants’ actual lives, especially among
those who strongly fear receiving compassion.
Furthermore, as discussed above, it is possible that the
writing intervention might have reduced some participants’
distress to a degree that disclosure may no longer have been
viewed as helpful or useful, thus decreasing the motivation to
disclose. To circumvent this issue, future studies would bene-
fit from a careful consideration of the timing of self-
compassion interventions. For example, implementing an in-
tervention designed to increase general self-compassion and
recording disclosure of subsequent negative experiences may
be a methodologically sound alternative to targeting the neg-
ative experience using self-compassion after the fact. The
present study also entailed very brief interventions with no
follow-up assessment of their long-term impact. Thus, future
intervention studies should aim to implement a longer-term,
self-compassion intervention such as compassionate imagery
training (Gilbert and Irons 2004), and examine its impact over
a subsequent number of weeks.
Finally, fear of compassion from others is strongly related
to anxious attachment (r = 0.74; Gilbert et al. 2011). In fact,
Mindfulness
fears of compassion are thought to develop in part from inse-
cure attachments to early caregivers, where support would
have been withheld or provided inconsistently when needed
(Joeng et al. 2017; Kelly and Dupasquier 2016). However,
whereas fear of receiving compassion encompasses emotional
reactions to expressions of kindness in particular, insecure
attachment is a much broader construct. Nonetheless, future
research should incorporate measures of both constructs in
order to examine which is more strongly related to the per-
ceived risks of distress disclosure and whether self-
compassion training might be beneficial not only for those
with fears of receiving compassion but also for those with
deeper relational insecurities.
Acknowledgements Special thanks to Ariella Lenton-Brym for her
assistance in organizing and collecting the data for this project.
Funding This research was supported by funding from the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council (first, second, and third au-
thors) and the Canada Research Chairs Program (third author).
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflicts of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
Ethical Approval All procedures performed in studies involving hu-
man participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the
institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964
Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical
standards.
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